The Last Letter Read online

  Potshelter nodded wonderingly. "I only read as far as where they were planning to blow up Grand Central Spaceport and all the guides in it."

  "Judas Priest, I think I have it!" Krumbine shot up. "It's a pilot advertisement — Boy Next Door or — that kind of thing — printed to look like hand-writing, which would make all the difference. And the pilot copy got mailed by accident — which would mean there is no real Richard Rowe."

  At that instant, the door dilated and two blue detective engines hustled a struggling young man into the office. He was slim, rather handsome, had a bushy head of hair that had somehow survived evolution and radioactive fallout, and across the chest and back of his paper singlet was neatly stamped: "Richard Rowe."

  When he saw the two men, he stopped struggling and straightened up. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but these police machines must have made a mistake. I've committed no crime."

  Then his gaze fell on the hand addressed envelope on Krumbine's desk and he turned pale.

  Krumbine laughed harshly. "No crime! No, not at all. Merely using the mails to communicate. Ha!"

  The young man shrank back. "I'm sorry, sir."

  "Sorry, he says! Do you realize that your insane prank has resulted in the destruction of perhaps a half-billion pieces of first-class advertising? — in the strangulation of a postal station and the paralysis of Lower Manhattan? — in the mobilization of SBI reserves, the de-mothballing of two divisions of G. I. machines and the redeployment of the Solar Battle Fleet? Good Lord, boy, why did you do it?"

  Richard Rowe continued to shrink but he squared his shoulders. "I'm sorry, sir, but I just had to. I just had to get in touch with Jane Dough."

  "A girl from another hive? A girl you'd merely gazed at because a guide happened to blow a fuse?" Krumbine stood up, shaking an angry finger. "Great Scott, boy, where was Your Girl Next Door?"

  Richard Rowe stared bravely at the finger, which made him look a trifle cross-eyed. "She died, sir, both of them."

  "But there should be at least six."

  "I know, sir, but of the other four, two have been shipped to the Adirondacks on vacation and two recently got married and haven't been replaced."

  Potshelter, a faraway look in his eyes, said softly, "I think I'm beginning to understand—"

  But Krumbine thundered on at Richard Rowe with, "Good Lord, I can see you've had your troubles, boy. It isn't often we have these shortages of Girls Next Door, so that temporarily a boy can't marry the Girl Next Door, as he always should. But, Judas Priest, why didn't you take your troubles to your psychiatrist, your groupmaster, your socializer, your Queen Mother?"

  "My psychiatrist is being overhauled, sir, and his replacement short-circuits every time he hears the word 'trouble.' My groupmaster and socializer are on vacation duty in the Adirondacks. My Queen Mother is busy replacing Girls Next Door."

  "Yes, it all fits," Potshelter proclaimed excitedly. "Don't you see, Krumbine? Except for a set of mischances that would only occur once in a billion billion times, the letter would never have been conceived or sent."

  "You may have something there," Krumbine concurred. "But in any case, boy, why did you — er — written this letter to this particular girl? What is there about Jane Dough that made you do it?"

  "Well, you see, sir, she's—"

  Just then, the door re-dilated and a blue matron machine conducted a young woman into the office. She was slim and she had a head of hair that would have graced a museum beauty, while across the back and — well, "chest" is an inadequate word — of her paper chemise, "Jane Dough" was silk-screened in the palest pink.

  Krumbine did not repeat his last question. He had to admit to himself that it had been answered fully. Potshelter whistled respectfully. The blue detective engines gave hard-boiled grunts. Even the blue matron machine seemed awed by the girl's beauty.

  But she had eyes only for Richard Rowe. "My Grand Central man," she breathed in amazement. "The man I've dreamed of ever since. My man with hair." She noticed the way he was looking at her and she breathed harder. "Oh, darling, what have you done?"

  "I tried to send you a letter."

  "A letter? For me? Oh, darling!"

  Krumbine cleared his throat "Potshelter, I'm going to wind this up fast. Miss Dough, could you transfer to this young man's hive?"

  "Oh, yes, sir! Mine has an over- plus of Girls Next Door."

  "Good. Mr. Rowe, there's a sky- pilot two levels up — look for the usual white collar just below the photocells. Marry this girl and take her home to your hive. If your Queen Mother objects refer her to — er — Potshelter here."

  He cut short the young people's thanks. "Just one thing," he said, wagging a finger at Rowe. "Don't written any more letters."

  "Why ever would I?" Richard answered. "Already my action is beginning to seem like a mad dream."

  "Not to me, dear," Jane corrected him. "Oh, sir, could I have the letter he sent me? Not to do anything with. Not to show anyone. Just to keep."

  "Well, I don't know-" Krumbine began.

  "Oh, please, sir!"

  "Well, I don't know why not, I was going to say. Here you are, miss. Just see that this husband of yours never writes another."

  He turned back as the contracting door shut the young couple from view.

  "You were right, Potshelter," he said briskly. "It was one of those combinations of mischances that come up only once in a billion billion times. But we're going to have to issue recommendations for new procedures and safeguards that will reduce the possibilities to one in a trillion trillion. It will undoubtedly up the Terran income tax a healthy percentage, but we can't have something like this happening again. Every boy must marry the Girl Next Door! And the first-class mails must not be interfered with! The advertising must go through!"

  "I'd almost like to see it happen again," Potshelter murmured dreamily, "if there were another Jane Dough in it."

  Krumbine, Richard and Jane had halted to allow a small cortege of machines to pass. First came a squad of police machines with Black Sorter in their midst, unmuzzled and docile enough, though still gnashing his teeth softly. Then — stretched out horizontally and borne on the shoulders of Gray Psychiatrist, Black Coroner, White Nursemaid Seven and Greasy Joe — there passed the slim form of Pink Wastebasket, snow-white in death. The machines were keening softly, mournfully.

  Round about the black pillars, little mecho-mops were scurrying like mice, cleaning up the last of the first-class-mail bits of confetti.

  Richard winced at this evidence of his aberration, but Jane squeezed his hand comfortingly, which produced in him a truly amazing sensation that changed his whole appearance.

  "I know how you feel, darling," she told him. "But don't worry about it. Just think, dear, I'll al- ways be able to tell your friends' wives something no other woman in the world can boast of: that my husband once wrote me a letter!"

  The End

  About the Author

  Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. (1910-1992) was an American author of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Fritz Leiber, Jr. and Maurice Breçon. He was also an expert Chess player and a champion fencer.

  Other works by Fritz Leiber

  Try and Change the Past

  A Deskful of Girls

  The Number of the Beast

  Damnation Morning

  The Haunted Future

  The Mind Spider

  The Oldest Soldier

  No Great Magic

  Knight to Move

  Black Corridor

  The Change War

  The Big Time

  Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

  Two Sought Adventure

  The Bleak Shore

  The Howling Tower

  The Sunken Land (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Thieves' House

  Adept's Gambit (Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Claws from the Night

  The Seven Black Priests

  Two Sought Adventure

  Induct
ion

  Lean Times in Lankhmar (by Maurice Breçon)

  When the Sea-King's Away

  Scylla's Daughter

  The Unholy Grail

  The Cloud of Hate

  Bazaar of the Bizarre

  The Lords of Quarmall (with Harry Fischer)

  The Lords of Quarmall (with Harry Fischer)

  Stardock

  Their Mistress, the Sea

  The Wrong Branch

  In the Witch's Tent

  The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar

  The Circle Curse

  The Snow Women

  The Price of Pain-Ease

  The Sadness of the Executioner

  Trapped in the Shadowland

  The Bait

  Beauty and the Beasts

  Under the Thumbs of the Gods

  Trapped in the Sea of Stars

  The Frost Monstreme

  Rime Isle

  Sea Magic

  Bazaar of the Bizarre

  The Mer She

  The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars

  Slack Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring Hisvet

  The Mouser Goes Below

  Tarzan

  Tarzan and the Valley of Gold

  Destiny Times Three

  Gather, Darkness!

  Conjure Wife

  The Green Millennium

  You're All Alone

  The Silver Eggheads

  The Wanderer

  A Specter is Haunting Texas

  Our Lady of Darkness

  Night's Black Agents

  Shadows With Eyes

  Ships to the Stars

  A Pail of Air

  The Night of the Wolf

  The Secret Songs

  Night Monsters

  You're All Alone

  Heroes and Horrors

  Le Grand Jeu du Temps

  Ship of Shadows

  Les Racines du Passé

  Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions

  Day Dark, Night Bright

  Horrible Imaginings

  The Pale Brown Thing

  Chapterbooks

  Sonnets to Jonquil and All

  The Mystery of the Japanese Clock

  Quicks Around the Zodiac: A Farce

  In the Beginning

  The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich

  Gonna Roll the Bones (with Sarah L. Thomson)

  Adventures of a Balloon

  Further Adventures of a Balloon

  Riches and Power

  Children of Jerusalem

  The Road to Jordan

  After the Darkness

  The Automatic Pistol (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  They Never Come Back (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Smoke Ghost (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Power of the Puppets

  The Phantom Slayer

  The Hill and the Hole (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Spider Mansion

  The Hound (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Mutant's Brother

  To Make a Roman Holiday

  Taboo

  Sanity

  Thought

  Business of Killing (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Dreams of Albert Moreland (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Wanted - An Enemy

  Mr. Bauer and the Atoms (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Alice and the Allergy

  The Man Who Never Grew Young (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Diary in the Snow (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Girl with the Hungry Eyes

  In the X-Ray (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Let Freedom Ring

  The Black Ewe

  Martians, Keep Out! (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Lion and the Lamb

  The Ship Sails at Midnight

  The Enchanted Forest

  Later Than You Think

  Coming Attraction

  The Dead Man (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  Cry Witch!

  Nice Girl with Five Husbands

  Appointment in Tomorrow

  A Pail of Air

  When the Last Gods Die

  Dr. Kometevsky's Day

  The Moon Is Green

  The Foxholes of Mars

  Yesterday House

  I'm Looking for "Jeff"

  The Big Holiday

  The Night He Cried

  A Bad Day for Sales

  The Mechanical Bride

  The Silence Game

  Last

  Time Fighter

  Friends and Enemies

  Time in the Round

  Femmequin 973

  The Big Trek

  What's He Doing in There?

  Bread Overhead

  The Last Letter

  Bullet With His Name

  Little Old Miss Macbeth (by Fritz Leiber, Jr.)

  The Silver Eggheads

  M.S. Found in a Maelstrom

  Psychosis from Space

  The House of Mrs. Delgato

  The Improper Authorities

  The Reward

  Our Saucer Vacation

  The Night of the Long Knives

  Mariana

  Schizo Jimmie

  Rats of LImbo

  Deadly Moon

  When Set Fled

  While Set Fled

  All the Weed in the World

  Scream Wolf

  The Beat Cluster

  Hatchery of Dreams

  A Visitor from Back East

  The Thirteenth Step

  The Big Engine

  A Bit of the Dark World

  The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity

  The 64-Square Madhouse

  The Secret Songs

  The Snowbank Orbit

  The Creature from Cleveland Depths

  Myths My Great-Granddaughter Taught Me

  The Spider

  Dr. Adams' Garden of Evil

  Game for Motel Room

  X Marks the Pedwalk

  The Casket-Demon

  Kindergarten

  Success

  Crimes Against Passion

  A Hitch in Space

  The Bazaar of the Bizarre

  237 Talking Statues, Etc.

  The Black Gondolier

  Lie Still, Snow White

  When the Change-Winds Blow

  Be of Good Cheer

  Midnight in the Mirror World

  Mirror

  Four Ghosts in Hamlet

  Moon Duel

  Cyclops

  The Good New Days

  To Arkham and the Stars

  Sunk Without Trace

  The Crystal Prison

  Gonna Roll the Bones (by Sarah L. Thomson and Fritz Leiber)

  The Winter Flies

  Answering Service

  The Turned-off Heads

  When Brahma Wakes

  Crazy Annaoj

  The Square Root of Brain

  One Station of the Way

  Richmond, Late September, 1849

  Endfray of the Ofay

  Ship of Shadows

  When They Openly Walk

  America the Beautiful

  Gold, Black, and Silver

  The Lotus Eaters

  Another Cask of Wine

  Day Dark, Night Bright

  The Bump

  Cat Three

  Waif

  Do You Know Dave Wenzel?

  Cat's Cradle

  Midnight by the Morphy Watch

  Mysterious Doings in the Metropolitan Museum

  Catch That Zeppelin!

  The Glove

  Night Passage

  Belsen Express

  Dark Wings

  The Death of Princes

  The Eeriest Ruined Dawn World

  The Terror from the Depths

  The Princess in the Tower 250,000 Miles High

  A Rite of Spring

  Black Glass

  The Man Who Was Married to Space and Time

  The Button Molder

  The Repair People

  The Great San Francisco Glacie
r

  The Moon Porthole

  Horrible Imaginings

  Quicks Around the Zodiac: A Farce

  Black Has Its Charms

  The Ghost Light

  The Mouser Goes Below: An Excerpt

  Replacement for Wilmer: A Ghost Story

  Thrice the Brinded Cat

  The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich

  The Enormous Bedroom

  eStar Books

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